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Game one is tonight for your Washington Capitals. We'll be facing the Columbus Bluejackets ("BJs" from here forward).

A few quick notes / points for those of you that haven't been following the regular season or aren't hockey regulars.

1) Phillip Grubauer will get the game 1 start in net. Braden Holtby has long be the Caps starting goalie, but after a rough patch he was supplanted by Grubauer who played well in the second half of the year and earned the starting nod to start the playoffs.

2) Sergei Bobrovsky, the BJs goalie, is only 3-10 in the playoffs but has been one of the NHL's best goalies in the regular season and won the Vezina trophy in 2017. He had a down year by his standards in 2017-2018, so it will be interesting to see how he comes out in the playoffs.

3) Fresh off his 7th Rocket Richard trophy winning season, you're going to here alot about Alex Ovechkin's lack of playoff success, which as we all know at a team level is true. Individually, however, Ovi averages .91 points per game in the playoffs and roughly half a goal per game. The powerplay will be key for the Caps, so let's look to see if Ovi can get on the scoresheet early, and sets to tone for the series.

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the Capitals shocked some people with their record this year. The sure lost a lot in freee agency with a few good defenders leaving and then on offense, Mojo leaving.

Ovy and Backstrom has quite possibly the most impressive years of their careers considering how much change went on and their age but they’re pros pros and delivered like the always do. TJ Oshie battled some injuries and has been very ineffective this season as compared to last, which has really hurt the offense and consistency. Trotz has been giving him more rest the past two weeks, hoping thay helps him out, I hope it does because we need him to be a scoring machine in the playoffs.

After scoring 33 times last season, the 2017-18 campaign has been a huge disappointment for Oshie who has only four even strength goals this season. "When T.J. is on top of his game, you notice him a lot around the puck," Coach Barry Trotz said. "He has that dogged mentality when he’s getting to the net. He’s keeping plays alive, he’s putting pucks in those tough areas, he’s just quite noticeable. He’s gotten away from some of that a little bit, and we need more five-on-five [production]. ... I know T.J. knows his five-on-five goals are [among] the lowest on our team, but he does so many other things that are good for us and is so productive. That will come, and I hope it comes from now into the playoffs. T.J. is one of those guys that, when he gets hot, he’ll score quite a few goals." Poolies are waiting for this to happen.

Kuzy and Orlov are two young players with a lot of talent and ability but they need to to be more consistent if the team is going to go anywhere, especially Kuzy. A lot is needed and expected of him and he hasn’t exactly delivered like everyone had hoped so far.

The most intriguing part of the second half of this season is the battle going on in net. Naturally, Holtby played most of the season as the starter but he really started to struggle about mid season. So, Trotz started to play Gruby and ever since Trotz made that switch the team has played better, especially on defense. Gruby has been one of the best goalies in the entire NHL this season.

Gruby will start game 1 of the playoffs so it will be interesting to see what he does inbetween the pipes. If he continues to play at a high level, it should mean big things for the Caps chances in this series against Columbus and beyond in these playoffs.

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Ted's loyalty is his biggest flaw. Ovechkin is another example. It took him two-thirds of his career to figure out that defense is other "other" part of the game. Hecht, it took Dale Hunter to get him to understand that... and we all know what happened to Dale. Ovechkin and Wall put the butts in seats. Season tickets before championships. Maybe ANOTHER five-year plan will get it done. If you can't tell, I'm not a big Ted guy.

That said, I see Wall and Beal in their early 30s looking back and saying... 'If we were less concerned about personal stats/scoring/etc., we actually had a really good club and could have went far.'

Capitals fans never deserved a talent like Ovechkin. No matter what the guy does it’s always his fault. Without him the capitals would’ve been a forgotten team long ago.